The present invention relates to communication systems and packet data networks and in particular to a wireless transport layer protocol for wireless packet data networks and a communications system employing the same.
During recent years, tremendous growth within the telecommunications industry has been witnessed. Internet and global networks are now a consequential part of everyday life. The data communications segment of the telecommunications industry is developing and increasing at such a rate that it is becoming the dominant type of private and business commerce exchange on most networks. However, basically all data communications has been designated to conventional xe2x80x9cwiredxe2x80x9d land-line networks.
On the other hand, the wireless industry has indeed become established, although wireless networks have only marginally been used for data communications. The success of wireless voice telephone (cellular) services as reflected by the significant traffic volume, makes it clear that wireless data communications are categorically destined to become a dominant, if not the dominant, type of data communications within the telecommunications industry. However, for this to happen, wireless networks must achieve at least a comparable throughput to their xe2x80x9cwiredxe2x80x9d land-line counterparts in terms of capacity and reliability. The physical media for wireless communications is entirely different in all aspects and characteristics than its xe2x80x9cwiredxe2x80x9d land-line counterpart. These differences must be dealt with to allow wireless and xe2x80x9cwiredxe2x80x9d land-line communication domains to effectively, effortlessly and realistically interact.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel wireless transport layer protocol for wireless packet data networks and a communications system employing the same.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a wireless transport protocol for data packets transmitted over a communication network wherein at least one wireless party communicates with a wired party at least partially over a wireless packet data network, said wireless transport protocol comprising;
a user data field including data to be transmitted by a sending party to a receiving party; and
at least one sequencing field appended to said data field, said at least one sequencing field including information identifying the last data packet received by the sending party that was transmitted by the receiving party.
Preferably, the information identifies the identification (ID) number of the last data packet received by the sending party transmitting the current packet. In the preferred embodiment, the at least one sequencing field includes transmit and receive sequencing fields. The transmit sequencing field specifies a current packet ID and the receive sequencing field specifies the ID of the last received data packet.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a communication system comprising:
at least one wireless client;
a wireless network;
at least one land-line client; and
a network backbone interfacing said at least one land-line client and said wireless network to allow data packets to be exchanged between a wireless client and a land-line client, said communication systems using a wireless transport protocol during exchange of data packets, said data packets including a user data field including data to be transmitted from one client to another client; and at least one sequencing field identifying the last packet received by the client that is transmitting the current packet.
In yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided in a wireless communication network, a method of confirming delivery of data packets during data exchange between parties comprising the steps of:
providing each data packet sent by one party to another party with information identifying the last data packet received by said one party that was transmitted by the other party; and
upon receipt of a data packet by one party from another party, examining said information to determine if the information confirms receipt of the last data packet transmitted by the one party to the other party.
Preferably, the method further includes the step of re-transmitting the last data packet sent by one party to another party when a data packet received by the one party from the other party does not include confirmation of receipt of the last packet sent by the one party.
The wireless transport layer protocol in accordance with the present invention operates the OSI transport layer and is suitable for basically any kind of wireless communications. The wireless transport layer protocol helps to reduce wireless traffic and therefore, significantly increases the actual wireless network throughput, regardless of the backbone connections, the backbone protocol, and/or overall network characteristics. The wireless transport layer protocol also allows basically any kind of remote backbone transport protocol layer, albeit connectionless or connectable oriented, to be controlled.
The present invention also provides advantages in that communication transport and bandwidth in wireless packet data networks is increased thereby enhancing communication characteristics. The wireless transport layer protocol also provides a guaranteed packet delivery mechanism and recovery algorithm without increasing communications overhead or introducing control packets.